A Study on the Negative Effect of Language Transfer to University Students’ English Writing

Abstract

Negative transfer of mother tongue is a difficult point for second language learners, because they can be influenced by the knowledge and habits they have acquired in the process of first language learning. This research is based on the error analysis theory, collecting compositions from Chinese college students and categorizing the errors picked out from the text by analyzing and interviewing. The research finds out that the main error types are “Confused Meaning”, “Article Misuse” and “Verb Forms”, and these types of error are the easiest to be influenced by negative transfer of mother tongue as well. The author conducted a survey on students’ habit of using dictionaries as well and found that students tend to search the interpretation in Chinese merely, which is not helpful to impair the negative influence of language transfer. Students are advised to be aware of the existence of negative transfer of mother tongue. Some specified advice for students is to strengthen the memory of grammatical knowledge and change the habit of looking up the dictionary, enhancing the grasp of knowledge to compensate for the lack of language environment.